Page:Horses and roads.djvu/227

 Rh rest done the same way. ‘Free Lance’ objects very strongly to applying a hot shoe, and I will just give one or two extracts from a prize essay by George Armitage, M.R.C.V.S.

‘As a result of cold shoeing—i.e. fitting the shoes cold, which means rather fitting the foot to the shoe, much inconvenience is engendered. No man can alter cold shoes. If they are applied the foot must be altered, and that is accomplished by tearing it away. When the shoe is heated, it can be caused to “bed” itself to the foot, and no injury is found to result when due care is exercised. Good feet are never injured by it, and bad feet might frequently be benefited by its adoption, as the shoe always remains on more securely. Two surfaces are caused to correspond, friction is set up between them, and their separation not so easy. When, on the contrary, those surfaces do not bear any relation to each other, they are easily separated, as all inequalities act as so many levers against their position. In practice, the number of lost shoes under the cold method of fitting exceeds those executed while hot more than fifty times, and that number can be supported by all who have gone into the matter carefully.’ ‘If a little calm investigation were made, it would become evident that the objection to the use of hot shoes in fitting is only injurious to weak and tender feet when carried too far—the foot fitted to the shoe, in other words.’

The above extracts appear to me very sensible, and I believe no ill effects ever result from hot shoeing, except when done by ignorant men, who should be anywhere but in a shoeing-forge.